


the infinitesimal nature of protons

by halfwheeze



Series: the sad boys club universe [1]
Category: Buzzfeed The Try Guys (Web Series), Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Highschool AU, M/M, Multi, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans!Adam, childhood friends to lovers au, honesty teen for andrew's depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 09:18:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14053785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: Andrew is six years old when he meets Steven Lim. Obviously, that is not exactly where this story starts, as he had to do some things before meeting Steven Lim, like aging to six at all, but if one were to ask Andrew Ilnyckyj himself, he would say that this is where the story truly begins.





	the infinitesimal nature of protons

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this is the first part to a series, but it's the best to be independently read. 
> 
> I wrote this all today, so let me know if there are any mistakes thanks!

Andrew is six years old when he meets Steven Lim. Obviously, that is not exactly where this story starts, as he had to do  _ some  _ things before meeting Steven Lim, like aging to six at all, but if one were to ask Andrew Ilnyckyj himself, he would say that this is where the story truly begins. It is Andrew’s second day of kindergarten, and a kid from one of the other classes has been shifted to his class, and will apparently be sitting just next to him. Andrew didn’t mind the quiet of his lone table before (most of the other kids were in sets of two, but Andrew was on the end of the row anyway), but it’s almost nice to know another kid will be coming to sit next to him. He’s not great with kids his own age though, he knows, so he can only hope it’ll go really super well. 

“Hi. I’m Steven,” a boy says to Andrew, holding out a hand to shake as he sets down his bright blue bookbag. His hair is dark and so are his eyes, but the only thing Andrew can pay attention to is how bright his smile is, just really happy. He’s pretty, like Andrew’s Mom, but like, kid pretty. Andrew shakes his hand after he realises that that’s what he’s supposed to be doing, which is thankfully before Steven seems to realise he’s late on it. Steven sits down next to him and it’s easy, becoming friends after that. Steven’s favorite color is yellow. He likes dinosaurs and video games and  _ learning, _ God, he loves learning so much. He’s good at numbers and teaches Andrew and lets Andrew teach him letters when they get too hard. 

Just like it is for everyone else, kindergarten is a blur in the world of Andrew and Steven, but they’re always together. His teacher never even tries to separate them because it makes Steven panic and Andrew angry, so they even stay together in class. It takes less than a month for them to be iconically attached at the hip, so much so that they are less Andrew and Steven and more AndrewandSteven. It doesn’t take long, either, for Andrew to want to introduce Steven to his mom; he doesn’t know exactly why he wants to, but he thinks they would get along. Andrew’s Mom is mom pretty and Steven is kid pretty and there are a lot of things that make him think they would get along. 

Upon Steven’s introduction, Andrew knows almost immediately why he wanted her to meet his best friend. When a person meets Steven, that person really can’t help being happy, and Andrew loves when his mom is happy. Her smile is big and her eyes are soft and Andrew loves it when his mom is happy. Afterward, he can’t help but hug Steven tight, holding him close against his chest because Steven is smaller than him, tiny and short. He feels on top of the world when he’s hugging Steven, and Steven hugs him back just as tightly. They hug for at least a minute, but it feels like both a moment and a year. 

Andrew is already six, but Steven doesn’t get to be six until November, but nearly nobody notices because he’s really smart. He uses big words and doesn’t mind explaining what they mean, and he’s really good at numbers, and he has some trouble with books sometimes, but Andrew helps him out. Reading is what Andew is good at, what he loves with his whole heart, even if he’s only allowed and able to read little books right now. He can’t wait for chapter books; his mom has read him novels since he was just a baby, and he wants to be able to hold the books for himself and see their story on the pages. 

Neither of them are great with kids their own age. They keep to the pair of them rather than branching out, only ever really talking to each other about much of anything. They’ll work with other kids occasionally, like Andrew with Eugene Yang and Steven with this kid named Ryan, but they most keep to each other, like a system. System is one of Steven’s favorite words in October, and both of them use it all week; Steven’s mom teaches him more vocabulary words than they learn in class, and he teaches Andrew. It’s fun, something they have just for themselves, and Steven’s mom is cool. 

Meeting Steven’s mom was interesting, the first time. She pours over Steven, and her laughter echoes across the house, and she makes snacks often. Andrew hasn’t met Steven’s dad yet, but he hopes the other boy’s dad appreciates his mom; she’s one of the nicest ladies he’s ever met, and she deserves to be appreciated. Appreciate isn’t a vocabulary word, but something he learned from his own mom while they were reading when he was about four. It seemed like a word to hold onto. 

But anyway, both of them are better with adults, rather than kids their own age or even kids a little older. Andrew has never gotten along with many kids his own age, too serious or too responsible or whatever else his Mom told him were still good traits as she explained why other kids in daycare thought he was weird. Steven is bubbly and pretty and laughs a lot, and Andrew doesn’t understand why he has trouble speaking his mind, but if it makes Steven want to be his friend, he’s not complaining. Where Steven is nervous and skittish in front of the rest of the class, or even sitting next to just one other person, and that makes Andrew want to protect him, keep him comfortable. So, he sits between Steven and the other kids and keeps a barrier between Steven and anything that makes him sad. 

His teacher asks him about it eventually, communicating a sense of worry that Andrew doesn’t understand. She asks him about why he glares at other kids when they talk to Steven, and even why he and Steven always need to sit together. He doesn’t know why she asks him instead of Steven, but he’s kind of glad of it; it probably would have made Steven embarrassed. He tells her about Steven’s nervousness and the way he gets scared, and that Andrew needs to keep that from happening because it makes Steven sad and that’s not okay. She tells him that he’s very kind, and that more kids should be like him, but he doesn’t really understand that either. He isn’t trying to be kind, and no one else needs to make sure Steven is okay. He’s got it covered. 

First grade doesn’t kill the need to protect Steven, nor their habit of holding hands, nor their collective attachment. Second grade preserves it even more as kids start getting meaner, but no one tries to pick on him or Steven. Neither of them are ever alone, and that’s the trouble with getting bullied; it’s always easier when you’re alone. Third and fourth grade pass in a weird haze of togetherness, but fifth grade is harder. Fifth grade brings deciding what to do in middle school, because band and art and weight training and chorus are all options and options are hard. Fifth grade is around the time that Andrew begins to realise that Steven is protecting him just as much as it’s the other way around. 

As they’ve gotten older, Andrew has gotten better at fielding kids their own age but worse at interactions with adults. He stutters, can’t lie for a moment, and has trouble making eye contact with authority figures at all, except their moms. However, as Andrew’s ability to talk to adults withers and dies, Steven is still really good at it, grin intact and making excuses with his bambi eyes and sunshine smile. Steven’s the one who sweet talks them out of trouble, because everyone knows that Steven is the prize of the science department, a sweet kid who doesn’t talk much; they know his best friend Andrew Ilnyckyj is meant to be the crowned jewel of the English department, but he can’t seem to talk his way out of a paper bag. 

Everyone has a hard time in sixth grade. Middle school is the ninth circle of hell for all involved with exactly zero exceptions, and being twelve just makes it worse. Steven turns twelve in November and the two of them are still quiet kids, and Steven still smiles like the sun, but sometimes he smiles less. Andrew works harder for Steven’s smile throughout that entire year, bringing him flowers off of the playground that they’re still allowed on for twenty five minutes a day and telling him stories. Steven likes his stories, and that only makes Andrew want to tell them more, to get them off of his chest and make Steven smile in the process. Steven is the first person to read Andrew’s first completed story, but of course he is. 

The summer between sixth and seventh grade, Steven is also Andrew’s first kiss. There is an air of getting it over with that Andrew doesn’t contest, and it’s quick as anything they’ve ever done, which means not very quick at all. Steven lingers and Andrew lets him, because he’s had a crush on his best friend since he was six years old and he’s okay with that. After it’s done, they don’t talk about it, Andrew writing and lazily watching as Steven plays video games on the television in his bedroom. If they sleep curled around each other even more than usual that night, Andrew won’t admit to it. 

Adam Bianchi is a whirlwind of change that happens when they’re in seventh grade, the first to penetrate their friendship barrier. Andrew doesn’t know where Adam came from, but he switches between wearing hoodies that swim on him and crisp button ups, his pants always the same kind of jeans that look a little too big for him. He laughs at all of Andrew’s jokes and Steven’s too, but it’s always so quiet; he speaks his mind quietly as well, but he always speaks it. Andrew never asks about the tank top looking thing that Adam wears beneath his clothes or the liners in his bag, and he thinks Adam appreciates that. Steven doesn’t ask either, even though he looks curious, and Andrew thinks that’s why Adam sticks around. 

Adam scares Andrew, to be fair and honest and forthright and to tell how he really feels about all of this. Not actually Adam, because Adam is quiet, short, small, honest and funny and lovely (pretty, like Steven, though Andrew won’t realise what that means for a very long time), but the idea of Adam. Andrew doesn’t want him and Steven to grow apart from their attached at the hip nature, but they don’t. Through seventh and then eighth grade, Adam brings all three of them closer, which Andrew really hadn’t thought of as possible before Adam came around. Because of Adam, and maybe their own merit, the three of them enter high school as thick as thieves. 

It shouldn’t hurt near so much as it does, but both Adam and Steven date around a little in freshman and sophomore year. Nothing lasts nearly as much as it hurts, but Andrew should expect that; Steven has been the Sun of his life for as long as he’s been a functioning person, and Adam came in as the endless cosmos. Andrew is used to being over attached and loving his friends and being in love with both of them, by sophomore year. He’s sixteen and sad, but how’s that so different from fifteen, fourteen, thirteen and sad? Steven and Adam date other people during freshman and sophomore, but they always crash into bed next to Andrew when they want to get away, so he figures the three of them will be fine. Maybe someday it’ll stop hurting all over. 

The knife twists in junior year. Steven and Adam start holding hands in public, start kissing and looking like a couple and when someone asks Andrew if they’re dating, he has to say that he  _ doesn’t know,  _ because they  _ didn’t tell him. _ He feels like he’s going to hyperventilate every time they’re in the same room together, so he just ducks out a lot. He cancels plans and hang out with Eugene Yang some more, both of them rudimenting on their love for their childhood best friend. When Shane Madej joins them, it feels like the three of them  _ are  _ something, like a club for sad high school juniors who fall in love with the wrong people. They sit together and talk more than Andrew ever talks about his feelings. 

Eugene Lee Yang is a complete cheese. He’s hot, and he likes to occasionally act like the bad boy in an unfortunate teen novel, but he’s a complete goof. He talks around his feelings for Zach rather than about them, skirting how in love he is until he’s drunk. He and Andrew and Shane get absolutely sloshed at Andrew’s house one night and he tells them about his love. Zach Kornfeld is popular by virtue of being hilarious and adorable, but he’s kept his childhood best friend just as Steven has kept Andrew: willingly at his beck and call without even knowing it. Talking about it sobers all three of them and settle sitting against the wall, not talking about any of their feelings, not talking about anything. 

Shane Madej is honestly weird, but it’s something he’ll cop to immediately if called out on it, which is kind of cool. He’s got a dark kind of humor that makes Andrew, and, he thinks, Eugene, feel comfortable spilling his guts and not having it be taken super seriously. He’s the only one of the three of them who started hanging out with his crush in high school rather than growing up with them; Andrew doesn’t envy him. Ryan Bergara is a firecracker who can talk for days, but he’s also an off season basketball jock who is all Honors-AP and still has enough free time to do things outside of school, like hangout with Shane, whatever they do. Andrew feels like he knows too much about someone he’s literally never spoken to in his life. 

He’s been ducking out of hanging out with Steven and Adam for two months before Steven confronts him about it, crashing like a tidal wave in Andrew’s bedroom after coming in the window he’s crawled through since they were twelve years old. He can tell that Steven is on edge as soon as he gets into is room, firstly because Steven is already there when he gets home from hanging out with Shane and Gene, but also because the line of his shoulders is tight, his face tighter. There’s a moment of silence like mourning before Steven stands up off of Andrew’s bed, and Andrew holds his breath. Steven is so much taller than him now, and he seems to forget whenever they aren’t next to each other. He doesn’t remember the last time they were next to each other. 

“What’s up, Andrew?” Steven asks, fake casual and tense and Andrew doesn’t know how to make it better, just know that he wants to. That’s not his job anymore, though. He may have been Steven’s first kiss, but he also knows who has kissed his best friend lately, and he is having trouble breathing. 

“Just getting home. Why are you in my room?” Andrew responds, equally tense and blasé as he puts down his bag at his desk. He doesn’t even notice how slow his own actions are, working hard not to startle Steven into any kind of action. He’s not sure where he got the instincts to deal with the anger of others, but he knows that anger scares him. That’s really all he knows. 

“Wanted to check on you. It’s not like I hear from you. You’ve gone completely silent in the groupchat, you’re never around… figured this was the one way to get you to talk to me,” Steven explains, checking some nonexistence spots on his hands instead of looking directly at Andrew. After a moment, his eyes track back to Andrew’s and Andrew can’t look at him. He can’t do it. His eyes hit the floor. 

“I haven’t been gone that much,” Andrew trails off, his voice growing weaker as he goes on and looks up at Steven. His anger is open now, his frustration written all over his face as he looks at Andrew like he’s both nothing and the cause of all of the frustration on the Earth. Andrew feels like fucking  _ garbage. _

“You don’t sit with us anymore. You’re always with  _ Eugene  _ and  _ Shane, _ hanging out and doing whatever it is that you do, and you never text me anymore and Andrew,  _ you’re my best friend, and you’ve made me do junior year without you,” _ Steven says, gesticulating and speaking with all his emphasis, and it’s just enough to drag up some anger in Andrew. He makes himself scowl and stokes the fire. 

_ “I  _ made  _ you _ do junior year without  _ me? _ Because, as far as I was concerned, I came to school one day and my best friends were holding hands and making out on the math hall, and they didn’t even tell me they were  _ together in the first goddamn place. _ Please tell me how this was me leaving you, Steven. Give me the details in which you didn’t leave me first, cause I’m not seeing it,” Andrew says, vitriol leaking into his words, all of his backed up bitterness spilling into the air between them. Steven looks like he’s been hit and then he’s  _ angrier _ , crossing half the room in a stride. 

“If you had a problem with me and Adam, you should have just fucking said,” Steven growls, angry and loud in the empty room. Andrew tries to kill the hemmed in feeling that his closeness inspires, but the anxiety crawls up his throat anyway, making it hard to speak, but he has to. 

“It’s not a problem with you and Adam. It’s a problem with not telling me you were together, with not being  _ honest  _ with me,” Andrew replies, quieter and proud of his even tone despite how much he feels like he’s shaking apart. When Steven steps even closer, his hands already moving to gesture, Andrew unfortunately can’t stop himself from flinching, backing against his desk. Steven’s eyes go wide. 

“Drew. I don’t care how mad I am. I don’t care. I  _ promise _ I would never hit or hurt you. You know that, right?” Steven asks, head tilted downward to speak close, and Andrew nods. “You’re still my best friend. We were gonna tell you,” Steven says at a near whisper after, and their faces are close. Andrew holds himself back even though he  _ wants _ , because Steven is taken and all of this is going so wrong. When Steven kisses him, it’s like coming home, flashing back to the summer between sixth and seventh grade and sweaty palms and Andrew holds onto him even though it’s wrong. Despite the fact that he remembers a time before Adam, he also remembers  _ Adam, _ and he pushes Steven away a moment later. 

“What the  _ fuck, _ Steven?” Andrew asks, pushing him away bodily until there’s a foot of distance between them. He needs space and time between them, an entire universe of intermission before he’ll be okay with them again.  _ Adam. _ Thinking of Adam makes him sick to his stomach but he can’t stop thinking of their soft third who deserves better, who deserves the world. It takes thinking of Adam before he can look up at Steven again, anger and devastation plain on his face. 

“I -” Steven starts, but the anger takes Andrew over and he’s not okay, he’s so deeply not okay because Adam deserves better than either of them but Adam obviously wants Steven and Adam can never know. Adam can never know. 

“Get out of my house. Don’t tell Adam. Just leave. Go back to normal. Leave,” Andrew interrupts, his voice surprisely steady, as rife as it is with emotion. Steven nods and backs away, climbing out of Andrew’s window instead of taking the normal way out like a normal fucking person. Anxiety crawls through Andrew’s stomach and sets fire to his organs before Steven is even out of his yard, and Andrew feels himself collapsing inwards. He texts the groupchat with Shane and Eugene automatically, quickly, without feeling a fucking thing. The fire burning in his stomach is making ladder rungs of his ribcage, reaching his heart at an alarming rate. It’s ash before Shane says he can’t come, and long before Eugene says he’s on his way. He’s burnt out. He’s empty. 

Eugene shows up with a smile for his mom and a bottle of wine or two in his backpack. He smooth talks Andrew’s mom into believing that they need to stay home tomorrow to prepare for a presentation, and that Andrew didn’t want to ask her. Andrew knows she wouldn’t believe him if Andrew hadn’t been so quiet, so withdrawn lately, if she had seen Steven or Adam at all in the past month. Meanwhile, once Eugene is in his room, a bottle of red, a bottle of white, and wine glasses from Dollar Tree (complete with wine mom sayings like  _ Why limit happy to an hour? _ and decals of red wine) are broken out. They sit against the wall in his room that doesn’t have anything against it like they always do and Eugene doesn’t make him talk for like an hour. That’s part of what he likes about Eugene; he’s willing to stress drink half a bottle of wine each before making Andrew say a word.

“What happened?” Eugene asks simply, not looking at him in the slightest. Andrew doesn’t know what he would do if he had to make eye contact while having this conversation, and he’s glad Eugene doesn’t make him. 

“Steven came over. He kissed me,” Andrew replies, just as simple, in the same plain tone of voice. Eugene’s eyes don’t snap towards him like he’s said something outrageous (which he has) nor look anywhere but him conspicuously like he’s said something embarrassing (which he also kinda has). Instead, Eugene just nods, which is both reassuring and curious; it makes Andrew wonder exactly what Eugene has going on with Zach Kornfeld. He decides very quickly that, if Eugene never wants to tell him, he’d rather not know. 

“Is he still with Adam?” Eugene asks eventually, after half a wine glass worth of silence. Andrew nods without breaking his dedicated eye contact with the wall, slumping a little more against it. Eugene nods again without saying a word, waiting another minute or so before he says anything else. “You tell him to fuck off?” Andrew startles enough that he gives an aborted sort of half laugh, shrugging some of the tension out of his shoulders. 

“Not in so many words, but yeah,” he replies, killing his glass of wine with one last gulp. He goes to refill it and Eugene stops him by stealing the bottle, setting them on the other side of Andrew’s desk. 

“You’re done. If you get trashed, you’ll be sad trashed, and I’m not dealing with that. Also if we wanna drink tomorrow, that’s what I’ve got,” Eugene explains, stashing the wine glasses where Andrew would put his feet if he ever used his desk. Andrew nods and gets up steadily; he doesn’t get drunk fast, even as young as he is, and wine isn’t quite enough to get him on his ass in the first few glasses. Eugene gets up with just as much ease, and they crash on opposite sides of Andrew’s bed; they’re friends, but they’re not like Andrew and Steven or Adam or even like Eugene and Zach. Sometimes Andrew thinks it would have been easier if he and Eugene had been closer as kids, and they did the hopeless love thing with each other instead of actually being hopeless. He thinks that sometimes, but he could never,  _ ever  _ give up the time he had with Steven and Adam. 

They don’t get day drunk first thing in the morning the next day like Andrew theorized they might; instead, Eugene drags him to a greasy breakfast at the diner on the outskirts of town, and they eat bad pancakes. There’s bacon and sausage and silence, and it’s so unlike all the meals he’s shared pouring over menus with Steven and Adam that it breathes a sigh of relief into Andrew’s lungs - he almost feels normal. The burning goes away by the time he finishes his first cup of coffee, and it’s less than a minute after that when his cup is filled again, an endless cycle it seems. They stay for maybe an hour, an hour and a half without saying a word, and they only talk minimally once they get back in Gene’s car. 

It’s noon when they get back to Andrew’s house, and it’s as empty as it has felt since Andrew stopped inviting Adam and Steven over. It’s barely noon when Eugene makes eye contact with him for the first time today, looking up from his phone to barely look Andrew in the eye. He looks toward his phone screen again and back at Andrew, the Eugene version of an apology already marring his face. 

“He wants to skip third and fourth. Wants me to come get him,” Eugene explains simply, shrugging one shoulder. Andrew has been in his shoes, so he nods, gesturing for him to leave, and Eugene nods back and leaves. The silence crawls back in quickly enough that Andrew scrambles for his headphones, and it doesn’t escape him that Eugene left the wine that he so easily could have taken for himself. Andrew takes it for the apology gift that it is and doesn’t drink it for now, laying in his bed and thinking of nothing. When that stops working, he picks up Bill Bryson’s  _ A Short History of Nearly Everything  _ off of his shelf of Thriftbooks impulse buys, and he starts reading.

The science reminds him too much of Steven, but it’s written in an amusing enough way that Andrew doesn’t put it down. He loses himself in the repeated use of the word  _ infinitesimal  _ and tries to pack himself in that small, curling against his headboard as he reads the words of someone who understands far more than he thinks he ever will. He wonders if Bill Bryson understands high school boys and love and kisses left without thought, and decides that he doesn’t. He doesn’t think anyone really understands love, even so much as they wish they did, and that they wish it was a quantifiable thing. He tries to imagine a scientific study of real love, not just the chemicals, and throws away that thought.  _ That _ is a Steven thought. Andrew goes back to reading. 

He stops two hundred and fifty pages into Bill Bryson’s scientific and historic ramblings, the digital clock next to his bed bright red glowing telling him that it’s 2:30 in the afternoon. It’s simple to make the decision to get out of bed, forcing himself out of a depression funk, and decide to make dinner for his parents. They deserve a bit of a break, especially his mom, and especially for letting Gene stay last night and letting him stay home today. Going to the store to get his ingredients takes less than ten minutes, and he doesn’t have to talk to anyone because of the glory of self checkout. Getting home, he breaks out his pasta machine and starts on making lasagna noodles, loving the long haul of making homemade lasagna when he’s too in his own head. He can’t think himself into a depressive state when he’s busy making sheets of pasta. 

“Andrew! You’re making lasagna?” his mom says, excited, when she gets home. She loves his lasagna almost as much as his dad does, though his dad won’t be home for another hour at least. He thinks if he keeps preaching to himself, repeating the word  _ home,  _ it’ll stop feeling so empty and foreign without two of his friends sitting at the bar. One might think he was talking about Gene and Shane, but his mom knows who is missing. She always knows. He gives a little half smile and nods to her question as he ladles in some of the red sauce on top of the first layer of pasta, then sprinkling some cheese. She seems satisfied with his mental health and cooking ability when she goes back to her room. 

“You mind if I work out til you finish dinner?” she asks when she comes back, seemingly less than a second later to Andrew’s distracted mind, but he supposes three more layers of the lasagna have been done in her absence. He waves her off and continues with what he’s doing, adding the last layer of cheese to the top before putting it on the top rack of the preheated oven, calming himself in the warmth from it. It’ll be another hour before dinner, but seeing as his mother only gets home at 4:30, he has all the time in the world. He makes a salad and garlic bread to fill the time, putting the bread on the bottom rack when the lasagna only has a quarter of an hour left. It’s calming. 

“Hey! You’re making lasagna! Honey, he’s making lasagna!” his dad yells as soon as he comes into the kitchen, throwing an arm around Andrew’s shoulders when comes around the counter. His dad has always been a little affectionate, and Andrew smiles as he presses his face into his dad’s neck. 

“Hey Dad,” he says simply before pulling away, pulling open the oven as if he needs to check on the lasagna that won’t be done for at least another ten minutes. The cheese around the edges has started to melt, but the cheese in the middle is entirely solid. Maybe fifteen minutes. His dad goes to his parents’ room, assumably to take off his tie and kick off his shoes, before he comes back into the kitchen with Andrew. 

“You mind if I watch the news til dinner?” he asks, and Andrew waves him off too. They always phrase it like that  -  _ Do you mind if I _ \- and he isn’t exactly sure  _ why; _ it’s not like he makes any of these rules in this house. Not that there are many rules; so long as he doesn’t hurt himself or anyone else, he’s in the clear. He tosses the salad again to kill the time before just setting a time to remind him to check the lasagna, opening  _ A Short History _ again. This Bryson guy really has it down. Andrew is almost distracted enough not to react to the the timer on his oven, but he checks on the lasagna and the garlic bread on time. They’re both perfect, so he sets up hot pads and pulls them out. His dad is in the kitchen before Andrew can close the oven properly. 

“They need to rest,” Andrew cuts him off before can start, pointing to the living room with one hand. His dad pouts a little like an eight year old and turns on his heel, slamming back into the couch, like a child indeed. Andrew, meanwhile, takes the time to actually add the wet ingredients to the salad: diced tomato, sliced cucumber, sliced avocado. He reads his book a little more before touching a hand to the edge of the glass pan that the lasagna is in. It comes away not having burnt his entire hand off, so he calls his parents to the kitchen, offering them plates as they arrive. They’re jovial as they get themselves food and sit down to the kitchen table, already showering Andrew in compliments. He tries to match their good moods. 

“So how was everyone’s days?” his mom asks after the meal really gets underway, looking between her husband and her son. Andrew shrugs and waits for his dad to start, and the strategy doesn’t fail; his dad launches into a discussion of what happened in the office today and how it’s going to affect future sales at a moment’s notice, and Andrew nods along, because he kinda knows what’s going on. When he’s done, Andrew asks his mom how her day was, and the discussion moves on to how the underlings of his mom’s management position have both succeeded and failed today. Andrew laughs when it’s appropriate and winces when that is, and most of dinner passes.

“How was your day, Andrew? Did you and…  _ Eugene _ , was his name? Finish that project?” she asks, and Andrew knows she’s trying to set him up. Eugene said they were preparing for a presentation, not finishing for a project, but he just shrugs instead of calling her on it. He stuffs a bite of salad into his mouth to avoid the question before he has to answer it, swallowing and looking at her, finally. 

“We were prepping for the presentation in AP Lit tomorrow. I think we’ll do fine,” Andrew answers, and that’s pretty much the end of that. The rest of dinner, however little there is left of it, passes in small talk rather than interrogation, and Andrew goes back to his room after. He doesn’t have the mind for what little homework he has, so he turns back to Bill Bryson, making it through another hundred pages before he can barely keep his eyes open. He doesn’t notice how early it is when he goes to sleep, but he barely manages to plug his phone in before he completely crashes; it’s 8:37 pm. 

The next day is Wednesday. He wakes up to an outfit that he planned on Sunday of this week, set out so he would only have to prepare minimally for his own existence. His bag is still packed from Monday night, though remembering Monday night makes him feel slightly sick to his stomach. The house is empty when he bullies himself out of the door at half past seven, starting his car and speeding to school as he always does. He’s not late to school, because he never is, but it’s a balance between not being late enough to be late and not being early enough to run into Steven or Adam. It’s one that he’s perfected in the past two months since he stopped being the one who drove Adam to school, and he slams into Comp Sci with one minute left until the bell. 

“Nearly late, dude. Nice,” Shane says as soon as he sits down, handing him a coffee, to which Andrew hands him a breakfast bar. They’ve done this every day this semester, because as many signs as the Comp Sci teachers have that tell students not to bring food or drink, Andrew has never met a teacher that actually cared. He nods to Mrs. Brikowski and she nods back, tipping her own coffee towards him. She lets him and Shane do whatever they want in this class, honestly, because they’ll stay quiet even when they’re together. True to form, he and Shane don’t say another word to each other, both putting in headphones and starting to do their own thing. Andrew is working on his newest story, but he knows Shane is working on reforming an old screenplay. It’s not bad for something Andrew knows was written when Shane was about thirteen. 

When they split for second, Shane just nods at him, not taking his headphones out, and Andrew does the same in return. He sprints to AP Lit, catching Eugene in the hall as a StevenandAdam blocker of the best kind, ducked heads and group confrontation. He doesn’t say anything to Eugene but hands him the last approximate four ounces of his coffee, getting half a pack of Nabs in return. He and Eugene have done this since the semester started as well, and he’s watched Eugene slam the coffee and pull out an energy drink directly after ever since. He seems to run completely on caffeine and alcohol. 

AP Lit goes fast, but it always does. All AP classes are like a whirlwind of notes, lectures and feeling like he’s about to cry, but this is his second AP anyway. Third period is his third AP, because he’s not a good decision maker and he decided that two were a good idea. After junior year started going to shit, he’s glad for the distraction these days. He has Ashly Perez in AP Gov, and she’s funny and helps him get out of his own head for a few minutes at a time. She has it bad for one of her friends, though he can’t remember which one; he thinks that the friend is unfortunately and tragically straight though. He wishes he could do something to make Ashly happy. 

Lunch is bullshit. He just finds Shane and Eugene and crashes emotionally, just shuts down and depends on the pack mentality to keep Steven and his earnest eyes on the other side of the cafeteria. He gets to third period without incident, so it must work. 

Ashly helps, in third period. She doesn’t want to listen to his bullshit, and he doesn’t want to listen to her’s, but she does want to put Snapchat filters on him and put them on her story, so he lets her. It’s presentation week in Gov and he and Ashly have both already presented, so it’s almost like free time. As much free time as he ever gets. 

Fourth is hell. He, Steven and Adam had signed up for Foods 2 together as something fun to do, but that crashed and burned as soon as he stopped making eye contact with the two of them. Now, Andrew works in a group with two of Eugene’s friends that Andrew is borrowing for the time, Ned Fulmer and Keith Habersberger. Ned is a soccer jock (the chillest and coolest to hang out with of the jocks, in Andrew’s opinion), and Keith is a band geek (the least chill of the geeks, but he’s still fun to hang around). Their most important and redeeming collective personality trait is that the two of them are funny, especially playing off of each other, and they keep Andrew distracted throughout Steven crossing the room to sharpen a pencil that has to be able to kill a man five separate times to try and get Andrew’s attention. 

He  _ runs  _ out of fourth. Like he wishes he could call it something chiller, like a jog or a speed walk, but he’s full tilt sprinting by the time he catches up to Shane, who is leaving his Business Management class. They walk to the parking lot together without saying a word, and separate at their vehicles. 

It’s a good system, and it’s one that works for the rest of the week, and then Andrew is free to the weekend, free til Monday. He goes home and crashes, sleeping from his time getting off school until his mom gets home from work, bringing him Chinese takeout and the knowledge that his father will be late tonight, having drinks with superiors from work. That’s chill. She’s going out with her friends anyway, so the house will be vacant for Andrew to get shitty on Eugene’s leftover wine, even if half of it is Eugene’s nasty ass taste in white wine. He doesn’t even know where a kid Eugene’s age gets a taste for  _ white wine, _ of all things, but he won’t question it. It’s the destination he’s wanting, after all. He drinks straight from both bottles and reads more of  _ A Short History  _ and drunkenly contemplates the universe. It’s a better night alone than he’s had in a while. 

The weekend passes by too quickly. He doesn’t talk to Eugene or Shane, and definitely not Steven or Adam, so it’s quiet enough that he feels like he can be himself. He spends an hour in the shower Sunday night because he’s thinking about the universe instead of anything else, and that’s enough of a cleanse he almost feels clean. He remembers Adam and he remembers the way he rots from the inside out. Oh. 

He tries to use the same routine as last week in his classes today, but something goes sketchy right on the home stretch. Shane texts him at 2:50 to say that he won’t be walking him to the parking lot, so Andrew will go without cover. That’s fine. That’s totally fine. It’s definitely not fine. Andrew just sprints to his car this time, not having to stop to find Shane, and it almost works. Almost, in this case, is the operative word. As he tries to unlock his car, Steven’s pulls into the empty space beside it. The passenger window rolls down and it’s Adam whos speaks, and maybe that’s why Andrew is weak. 

“Get in the car, Drew,” he says, quiet like he always is, and something in Andrew  _ aches, _ because he  _ misses  _ Adam. Adam is still good and lovely and short and smaller than him and so pretty, so fine lined and Andrew still loves him, still wants him to be close. But he can’t get in the car. Not when he knows who else is in it. He shakes his head, but Adam just frowns, giving him a hard look. “He told me. I know. Please get in the car, Andrew,” Adam continues, the hard look softening a little. Andrew swallows and climbs into Steven’s backseat, wanting to put his head between his knees but not being able to actually motivate himself into doing it. He thinks of the infinitesimal nature of protons and wishes he could be that small. He’s still just some guy in the backseat of a car when he can make himself open his eyes. 

“We’ll come back and get your car,” Steven promises, but Andrew doesn’t know if he believes him. He believes in Adam, so he just nods his head, keeping it down. He knows Steven is trying to make eye contact in the rearview, but he doesn’t look up. He just really doesn’t want to. He thinks about Bill Bryson. 

“I don’t mind, you know,” Adam remarks out of the blue, maybe five minutes after Steven pulled out of the parking lot. Andrew can’t stop his head from snapping up, looking at Adam in his visor mirror, and he can see the vulnerability on his own face. When Adam catches his eyes, Andrew can see the decision on his face just as much as he ever can with Adam, because Adam is a decision maker at heart. 

“Stop the car, Steven,” Adam commands, and Steven pulls off on the side of the road automatically, and that’s when Andrew realises that they’re in backroads nowhere, on the side of some field. “Get out of the car, Andrew,” Adam says, softer, and Andrew listens too. Adam really does make all the choices with them, huh. When they’re standing together, outside of the car, Andrew can barely look at Adam. It’s like looking into the sun and looking into the ocean and all Andrew feels is afraid. Adam’s hand cups his jaw and Andrew has to stop himself from flinching all over again, and Adam pulls him down and Adam is kissing him. Adam is kissing him and Andrew is hyperventilating and he pushes Adam off of him and he slides down against the car and doesn’t say a word. He can never say the right words. 

“I have no idea what’s going on,” he whispers, helpless laughter leaking into his words, and that’s when he realises that Steven is out of the car too. Steven and Adam sit down on the grass with him, one of them on either side, and Andrew is scared and confused and just… he feels so small. He’s met protons bigger than him, right now. 

“We went about this all wrong, Drew. We both like you, and we both like each other, and we thought… we thought it’d be okay if we started dating first. We didn’t think you’d pull away, and we didn’t think you’d not want to be around us, and… we just want you around. Even if you don’t want us like that,” Steven explains, slow and plain and even in a way that Steven rarely is in his words, and Andrew doesn’t know what to do with any of that. 

“We want to date you, more or less. Or at least be friends with you,” Adam says, simpler and even plainer, and Andrew nods, understanding a little more. 

“Why didn’t you just ask me?” he asks, and his voice breaks, and he doesn’t care. He sees Steven make an aborted motion to touch him before he pulls back like he’s scared, and Andrew realises that he’s the one that did that. He’s the one who made Steven think he’s scared of him, that he’ll push him away. He didn’t mean to. 

“We didn’t think you’d… go for that. We didn’t think we’d get two for two,” Steven says, arms wrapped around his knees like he has to physically disallow himself from reaching out. Andrew exhales a laugh. 

“I knew I was in love with both of you when I was fourteen years old,” he whispers, and his laughter breaks apart his words like chopsticks, cracking them open and leaving space. It’s a mess, so much so that he doesn’t hear Steven and Adam’s collective gasp, nor really notice them looking at each other. 

“You… love us?” Adam asks after he seems to calm down, looking like he’s somewhere between shocked and in awe. Andrew nods. 

“Of course I do, Addy. Where’ve you been? What kind of asshole avoids his friends who start dating if he’s not homophobic or heartbroken? And you know I’m not homophobic. It’s almost a logical conclusion,” he laughs a little more. He’s emotionally exhausted. He has been all semester. He has been since he was fourteen. Adam reaches out and takes his hand, and it’s not long before Steven takes the other. Yeah, okay. Andrew could handle a little more of something like this. 

It should be a bigger deal when he goes back to the high school on Tuesday with two boyfriends, his best friends, back in his life, but it’s not. He still hangs out with Shane in first and Eugene in second and Ashly in third, though he does go back to Steven and Adam in fourth. Keith and Ned don’t mind his leave, wishing him luck with his new relationship. They’re not very public yet, so he figures Eugene (who Andrew did, almost immediately, tell) told them. He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t really want to be private with it either. 

Junior year is a blur of APs and happiness and SATs and cuddling in bed and ACTs and kissing. Eugene still comes over once a week to get drunk or not, even after he and Zach get together in a dramatic meeting during holiday break. His group of friends conglomerates into one big mismatched pile of bullshit when Shane and Ryan get together, finally, by prom. The end of junior year is beautiful and feels like fireworks in that it makes Andrew both excited and nauseous, and he loves every single moment of it. 

Senior year is scarier. It’s college applications and their first fight and getting into his first car accident (nothing major, just a fender bender with quick resolution that doesn’t even go against his insurance), and he loves his boyfriends more every single day. They apply to all the same colleges even though it’s hard with their varied majors: Steven is going for Bio-Chem, Adam is going for Film Study and Andrew himself is going for English Lit. They all get in to one relatively close by and then it’s all about shipping off, about packing and planning and getting jobs in the area to pay rent, because none of them are prepared to live on campus and yet separate from each other. 

Andrew’s first apartment is littered with film cartridges and chemistry notes, an amalgamation of white boards that takes up an entire wall in the living room, and he never really gets the honest college experience. The fridge is always stocked with things for him to cook, honestly usually delivered by his parents, and he and Adam trade off on who has the honors. He never gets to be a college kid who is unsure, or a college kid who parties all the time, or a college kid who can go off and do anything he wants as soon as the diploma is in his grabbing hands. And, to be honest, he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

It’s all, exceptionally, worth it.    
  


**Author's Note:**

> Leave me a prompt @halfwheeze on tumblr, and I'll get to it when I can!


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